His entourage, who box him in, arrive in half a dozen four-wheel drives. As he is mobbed by journalists on entering the hall, it takes his security detail 10 minutes to clear the platform. He stands in a brown turban and a long, white cloak to listen to the delegates' applause and chants of support. Sometimes he raises a fist, with a gold ring, to punch the air.

His face is puffy. His eyes squint to see beyond the flowerbed set into the carpet, its plants kicked over by the crowd trying to reach him, towards the first ranks of chairs. It is as if he is looking for someone, perhaps a face he knows to wave at.

Sometimes a man in a dark coat and a black trilby steps from behind and whispers in his ear. Then the colonel raises two fists. He kisses his fingers in appreciation and, in a stifling hall, he sits down and removes first a red and then a white handkerchief with which to mop his brow.

Gaddafi does not like the fact of the photographers sitting in front of him on the floor, so, with an imperious gesture, like King Canute ordering back the waves, he gestures one way with his hand and then the other.

As the journalists are moved, a large television monitor is revealed behind them, in which Gaddafi can see himself reflected. He bounces slightly on his green leather chair for comfort and then stands again to greet cries of "Allahu Akbar".

When the speech begins, it is interrupted by chants of "God and Muammar, you are all that Libya requires". You hear this on the streets in Tripoli and the surrounding towns at demonstrations organised by the regime. Gaddafi tells the delegates with a smile that he has never heard these chants before. He explains he does not watch television much.

Then the real performance begins, almost three hours of it. He laughs sometimes, but not very much. Largely he reads from his script in a low bass voice, sitting behind a long, ornate desk whose facia is decorated with gold seals and on which sit three bouquets.

From behind this construction he tries to explain that he is not a king or a prince or even a president. When he is asked to come to the congress it is as the "example of the revolution that he led".

The power, he insists, is with the people and their revolutionary committees. Sometimes, however, people ask him to intervene. And sometimes he agrees.

The representatives of "the people" don't say much. There are a few questions for which his sheath of paper seems to have the answers ready scripted. Over the hours a few fall asleep while others pop up enthusiastically on cue to start another wave of chanting.

Instead, it is all about the man who is not a president or a king. He suggests he is the country's father. He talks about the country's sons and children. He talks about his own children, too: Saif al Islam, whom he credits with telling him the country needs a constitution, and his daughter, whose charity, he says, has not taken money for personal use abroad.

The non-president announces new policies and initiatives. He explains why his tone today is different from when he spoke in Green Square to the angry youth. Today he is speaking in the language of the world, not of the furious young people.

There are the usual flourishes. Gaddafi says Libyans will "fight to the last man and woman" against foreigners. "We will enter a bloody war and thousands and thousands of Libyans will die if the United States enters or Nato enters," Gaddafi says, laughing at points during his long address.

"Do they want us to become slaves once again like we were slaves to the Italians? … We will never accept it." There are jibes against David Cameron and the UN security council. Offers of aid, he says, are equivalent to invasion. He blames al-Qaida for the trouble.

All of which you would expect.

It is the unexpected things that stand out. He offers – twice – an amnesty to those who lay down their "stolen weapons", and hints at an apology and investigation for those who died "on both sides".

There is money on offer, and a constitution, and a free press.

A woman in a green, spangled headdress tries to reach the stage with a sheet of white paper, as all sense that the speech is coming to an end. She is blocked, but Gaddafi is mobbed again as he walks to his golf cart. He does not drive but is pushed from behind by his minders as journalists shout questions.

Then he is gone. And it is over. The coaches come for the delegates. If there has been a vote on anything, or a debate, then we have not seen it.

Another moment in Libya's unique system of "pure democracy" – as the Colonel likes to call it – has reached its conclusion.